7.16.2003

Anyhow, point of this blog is to record Leelo's daily (or semi-daily) progress as he enters an intensive ABA (applied behavior analysis) program to eradicate his autistic symptoms and behaviors, but I suspect his story will emerge piecemeal and will be mixed up with those of his family, relatives, and friends to a healthy degree.

Update on Isobel and the same-sex marriage conundrum: Turns out she has focused her attentions on Max because she proposed to Tea and was rebuffed. So that's an acceptable outcome. Still po'd at my mom, though.

More gender issues amongst the preschool set: Two days ago Isobel, her male fiance Max, and their sister friends Eliz and Sophie raided the dressup box and were playing 'fairies' with all four resplendent in sparkly wings and huge puffy late-'80s prom dress petticoat slips that made them look like dervishes when they spun. (Digital camera was card-full and battery-poor, of course.) At some point, Max's friend Che arrived. Did he join in the fun? Oh no--instead, he stalked up to joyous, flitting Max and demanded to know what Max was doing in a dress. Poor Max immediately wilted, stripped off his finery, and slunk off to do perfunctory boy things as designated by Che. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. The two boys are both FOUR, for chrissakes.

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Went back and was watching never-before-seen videos of Leelo and Isobel from way back when--Leelo at 12 mos - 18 mos and Iz somewhat older than that (took me 18 month to finally finish the tape and send it to my dad for dubbing to a real videotape; yes I am incompetent with anything that involves more than one cord):

--Leelo at almost 13 months: joyous, engaged, babbling into the camera for almost two minutes straight, delightedly showing us his body parts
--Leelo at just past 14 months: Not smiling much, not responding to his name, playing somewhat listlessly.

This is eerily reminiscent of a salon.com article I read years ago, in which a mother discovers that her autistic son's behavior changed dramatically between home video sessions--and that one thing that occurred in the interim was his MMR vaccine. Now, I remain healthily skeptical of vaccine-based and biomedical/dietary autism theories (we are investigating them, yet will not swallow them whole without consideration). Still, after viewing that video I will definitely be reviewing Leelo's medical files for vaccine dates and antibiotic types/dosages.